A $17K garbage collection calendar? Saskatoon looks to lower its graphic design costs

Saskatoon Coun. Bev Dubois sounded surprised recently when she was informed by a city staffer that it currently costs $17,000 to farm out the design of the city's garbage and recycling collection calendar.

"Why couldn't we do that in-house?" asked Dubois, the councillor for Ward 9. "You know, we're just taking a template that we've got now. Why can't we just put the 2018 calendar in there?

"You can do anything on computers nowadays."

Doing things in-house is exactly what the city now says it wants to do when it comes to graphic design projects such as the calendar.

On Monday, the city will float the idea of hiring two internal graphic designers for 2018 to city councillors.

"The city could save money and increase service to citizens by hiring internal staff to provide more creative services [graphic design] … which would reduce reliance on external contracts," reads the city's report to councillors.

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The design of the collection calendar — which the city, as an added cost saving, is considering no longer printing — was done by Saskatoon-based Creative Fire.

The company, whose contract with the city expires in February 2019, is paid up to $600,000 a year to provide a host of communications and marketing services on an as-needed basis.

Let's get digital (only)

Mark Rogstad, a spokesperson for the city, said the desire to hire in-house designers predates the more recent discussion about the cost of the collection calendar.

"It was one of those gaps that we've identified for some time," he said.

No longer printing the collection calendar would save the city almost $98,000 next year, according to a city estimate.

Besides the $17,000 design cost, there are the costs of printing ($33,000), mailing to 71,000 homes ($54,000) and promotion ($6,000).

Moving to a digital-only rollout (the calendar is already available online) would still come with a design cost of $5,100 but would require a higher promotional budget ($15,000) to spread word about the digital-only move.

Ward 7 Coun. Mairin Loewen has expressed potential support for doing away with the printed version. 

"I can see there being some use in potentially phasing this out and providing printed copies perhaps on demand at city hall or through the libraries and trying to eliminate the mail-out portion," she said.

A vote on axing the printed version would still need to take place after Monday's meeting.